Garden lights offer the ability to illuminate your garden and garden decor in an almost magical way, creating faux shadows, elegant backdrops, all the while highlighting the best parts of the garden for all to see.

Beyond this wonderful use of garden lighting, there are actually a few practical reasons to consider using them, even if you aren’t the garden type or consider yourself artistically inclined to set up such a thing.

What practical reasons am I talking about?

Safety! I mean this in two ways.

First, safety in the sense of providing light in areas where it might be dangerous or risky to move about if there were no light. This includes obviously the garden but also areas where garden lighting accessories or outdoor lighting accessories have become extremely useful; namely, stair lighting! Attaching solar powered stair lights is a brilliant idea. And even just having walkways and pathways in the yard lit up is going to make it easier and safer to walk around.

The other type of safety that garden lights provide is a deterent for theft and burglary. Simply put, if your yard and things are lit up then you are less likely to find yourself the victim of a thief, who would just as well find it easier to move on to the next house that is shieled in darkness. Of course, garden lighting is not a security plan in and of itself, but knowing that it acts a potential deterent is a nice perk of a good lighting set up.

Another practical use of outdoor and garden lights is just so one can see in order to do other things when it’s dark. This sounds silly, but I’m talking about things like hosting outdoor parties, reading outside, even being able to see little things such as where the keyhole is when you come in and you’re trying to get inside. (This could be lit up by a garden in the front yard.)

So while garden lights of course offer the benefits of making for a beautiful garden set up, you also get the perks of having an outdoor area that’s safer for kids and adults alike to move about and see where they’re going, a home that’s not as easy as a target for burglary than it would be without the lights, and then the practical aspect of having lights which offers you the chance to entertain outdoors at night or just relax and read a book in the garden.

A garden pond can be a lot of work, and something else to consider is the health of the fish in regards to the lighting set up used in the garden.

For example, you might be wondering if the garden lights may interfere with the health of the fish? Do lights disturb them? Do they keep them up at night?

Wait, do fish even go to sleep?

To this latter question, sleep is a tricky word in regards to fish, but yes, for all intents and purposes, fish have day/night cycle and it revolves around the lighting they are exposed to.

Ensuring that the lights won’t interfere with the fish is pretty simple. You should first of all not shine any lights directly into the water. This not only wouldn’t benefit the fish, but it also isn’t a very attractive set up for the garden. It’d be better for the lights to illuminate the area. You wouldn’t want any of the lights themselves to be poking out and visible. (See our article “Garden Lights for Beginners” for more information on concealing the source of light and why it’s important.) Secondly, the most important part of having a garden pond with fish and having proper lighting is to put the lights on a timer. Use the timer to control the lights and have them turn off once it gets late, say, around 11 or 12. It would be best if the lights do not simply turn off but instead slowly fade, as this will give time for the fish to adjust to the change in light, mimicking what any natural habitat would provide.

Another aspect of garden lighting and ponds that we should mention is safety. Having cables running into the ground near a body of water poses an inherent risk. It’s important to use common sense and care when working around water and electrical cables. That being said, garden lighting cables are stepped down a notch in their voltage capacity for this very reason.

One way around this problem is to use solar garden lights. This way there are no cables and no electrical currents to worry about. But in order to provide the fish with a consistent day/night schedule, you will need solar garden lighting which is equipped to a timer. Otherwise, they may shine all night!